When the religious leaders confront Jesus and demand to know where his authority comes from, they’re not asking an honest question — they’re setting a trap. Jesus refuses the frame, tells a parable, and ends up giving the most direct answer imaginable.
The Parable of the Tenants isn’t just a story about Israel’s history. It’s a mirror. The vineyard was entrusted to stewards who were called to bear fruit for the world — and they kept it for themselves. The servants sent to call them back were beaten and silenced. And when the owner finally sent his son, they killed him to seize the inheritance.
But the son who was rejected became the cornerstone on which everything now rests.
This sermon traces the thread from God’s promise to Abraham — that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him — through Israel’s repeated failure to live that calling outward, to the moment Jesus quotes Psalm 118 and announces what the rejection of the cornerstone actually means.
The vineyard has been given to new tenants. And we are those tenants.
The question the parable leaves hanging isn’t abstract. What are we doing with the grace entrusted to us? Are we keeping it for ourselves — or is it flowing outward, to the poor, the stranger, the city, the world?

📖 Scripture: Luke 20:1–19 · Psalm 118:22 · Genesis 12:3, 28:14 · Colossians 1:17

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
— Psalm 118:22